Impact of resource availability and conformity effect on sustainability of common-pool resources

Abstract

Sustainability of common-pool resources hinges on the interplay between human and environmental systems. However, there is still a lack of a novel and comprehensive framework for modelling extraction of common-pool resources and cooperation of human agents that can account for different factors that shape the system behavior and outcomes. In particular, we still lack a critical value for ensuring resource sustainability under different scenarios. In this paper, we present a novel framework for studying resource extraction and cooperation in human-environmental systems for common-pool resources. We use microscopic update based on agent-based modelling and macroscopic ordinary differential equation based on game theory to explore how different factors influence the players’ decisions and the resource outcomes. These factors include resource availability, which accounts the environmental condition and the collective actions of the players; conformity effect, which captures for the social influence and peer pressure that the players experience; and their balance, which reflects a trade-off between environmental condition and social influence. We identify critical values for ensuring resource sustainability under various scenarios and parameter configurations. We demonstrate the observed phenomena are robust to the complexity and assumptions of the models and discuss implications of our study for policy and practice, as well as the limitations and directions for future research.